"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I bet that was Marbran's idea. Look at Jeekes's face and tell me if you see in it any feature indicating the bold, ingenious will to try a bluff like that. I never knew this fellow here. But I know Marbran, a resolute, undaunted type. You can take it from me, Marbran directed—Jeekes merely carried out instructions. What do you ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... bluff and hearty greeting from the clergyman as Cardo took off his hat to the two young ladies, who simpered and blushed becomingly, for Cardo Wynne was the catch of the neighbourhood; his good looks, his father's reputed wealth, and the slight ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... rap at the outer door Was answered at once by a bluff 'Come in!' And he came, with stamping of heavy boots, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Vernabelle; and Cousin Egbert kind of strangled at this, too. He finally manages to say that he tried to read Shakespere once but it was too fine print. The old liar! He wouldn't read a line of Shakespere in letters a foot high. It just showed that he, too, was trying to bluff along with the rest of 'em on ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... genial old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act as interpreter ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... along somehow without them. But if you want me to put on any more Western stuff, you'll have to let me weed out some of these Main Street cowboys that Clements wished on to me, and go out in the sagebrush and round up some that ain't all hair hatbands and high-heeled boots and bluff. I've got to have some whites to fill the foreground, if I give up the Injuns; or else I quit Western stuff altogether. I've been stalling along and keeping the best of the bucks in the foreground, and letting these said riders lope in and out of scenes and pile ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... hundred miles, directly south, from Novgorod to the imperial city. The adventurers had advanced about half way, when they arrived at a little village, called Kief, upon the banks of the Dnieper. The location of the city was so beautiful, upon a commanding bluff, at the head of the navigation of this majestic stream, and the region around seemed so attractive, that the Norman adventurers, Ascolod and Dir by name, decided to remain there. They were soon joined by others ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... stood off and on for the night under double reefed top-sails, Lieutenant Shortland imagining that he had reached the utmost extent of this land. At five, on Monday morning, the 4th of August, he made sail again, and at six a bluff point of the island bore north-north-west, distant five or six leagues: this he called Point Pleasant. At noon the latitude was by observation 8 deg.. 54'. south, the longitude 154 deg.. 44'. east. Point Pleasant then bore east by north; ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... A bluff old farmer next he saw Sell produce in a village, And said: "What, what! is there no law To punish men ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation of a frank, bluff fellow. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... way, and sought to escape from me; and when I tried to pursue him, my horse bolted and nearly broke my neck. I caught the guide at last. After a very rough journey we reached the village of Finisterra, and wound our way up the flinty sides of the huge bluff head which is called the Cape. Certainly in the whole world there is no bolder coast than the Gallegan shore. There is an air of stern and savage grandeur in everything around, which strangely captivates the imagination. After gazing from the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Parliament at Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear close examination, but the general ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... political prisoners. In December, 1868, it was destroyed by fire, and the Government is now rebuilding it upon a more formidable scale. The Staten Island shore is lined with guns. At the water's edge is a powerful casemated battery, known as Fort Tompkins, mounting forty heavy guns. The bluff above is crowned with a large and formidable looking work, also of granite, known as Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... ye, gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot was either suspicious, or offended ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... in this world to do but to come down to her meals, and another a physician who had not been able, in embracing the medical profession, to deny herself the girlish pleasure of her pet name, and was lettered in the list of guests in the entry as Dr. Cissie Bluff. In the attic, which had a north-light favourable to their work, were two girls, who were studying art at the Museum; one of them looked delicate at first sight, and afterwards seemed merely very gentle, with a clear-eyed pallor which was not unhealth. A student in the Law School ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... go up to the top of the hill and stop the mules there, but to keep in sight of me. I had my coach driven up the road about 100 yards, and on looking up the creek I saw one Indian in war paint and feathers looking around the bluff at me. That was the only one of their band I could see, so I got up on top of my coach and motioned for him ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... the regular Afghan soldier. The sun is just setting behind those western mountains I passed three days ago as we reach the western shore, the boatmen are unloading the saddles and accoutrements of our party, and I sit down on the bank and survey the strange scene just across the river. The steep bluff opposite is occupied by people who accompanied us to the river. Many of them are seizing this opportune moment to prostrate themselves toward the Holy City, the geographical position of which is happily ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In a quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and came in upon ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... graveyard," Harry whispered when they had climbed the bluff by the mill long after midnight and ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... listened so intently to her mother's glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of Darringtons slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing; exclusive in death as in life; jealously ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... loud "Ho! Ho!" [24] And he flung the brand to the drifting snow. Three times Wakwa puffed forth the smoke From his silent lips; then he slowly spoke: "Mhpya is strong as the stout-armed oak That stands on the bluff by the windy plain, And laughs at the roar of the hurricane. He has slain the foe and the great Mat With his hissing arrow and deadly stroke. My heart is swift but my tongue is slow. Let the warrior come ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... two in the morning when the dancers, bent on getting something to eat, adjourned the dancing for half an hour. And it was at this moment that Jack Kearns suggested poker. Jack Kearns was a big, bluff-featured man, who, along with Bettles, had made the disastrous attempt to found a post on the head-reaches of the Koyokuk, far inside the Arctic Circle. After that, Kearns had fallen back on his posts at Forty Mile and Sixty Mile and changed the direction of his ventures by sending ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... rose again, and curved off toward woods in the distance. Scarcely had our line reached this point, when the enemy "came down like the wolf on the fold." Judging from the promptness and vigor with which they assailed us, they evidently counted on making our enterprise another Ball's Bluff affair. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... lake in Scotland, and threatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis had really come, the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state of intense fear, said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the bluff old boatman; "let the little man ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... summer residence. Sombre memories overhang this "Cannoneer's Valley," this Topschidere, where Michael, the son and successor of good Milosch as sovereign prince of the nation, perished by assassination in 1868. In a few minutes we are whisked round a corner, and a high wooded bluff conceals the White City ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... like Lofoden in flood, One in his pride, in his subtlety one, mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining the grip of the hand. But John's ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff usually ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... northeastern part of the Indian Territory, near Coulby's Bluff, was about one hundred and fifty miles south of Kansas City. The rolling prairie which stretched between was interspersed with ranches, and an occasional small town, but for the greater part was ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... selected for the task, and at first consented. But, on consideration, his heart failed him. He could not, he said, communicate the details of a tragedy so appalling and he begged to be excused. Another, formed it was thought of sterner stuff, was then fixed upon: but he too, rough and bluff as he was in his ordinary manners, possessed the heart of a generous and sympathetic human being, and also respectfully declined. A third made a like objection, and at last a female friend of the family was with much difficulty persuaded, in company with another, to undertake the mournful task. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... taken for a madman. This terrible speech was understood, and Darius withdrew to his own country with what speed he could. Substitute a letter for these symbols and the more threatening it was the less terror it would inspire; it would have been merely a piece of bluff, to which Darius would have paid ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... through the Knoll Sands, prevent more than a passing glimpse. Quat is an old British word for wood, and refers to a wide stretch of woodland once included in the great Morfe Forest; and ford to an adjoining passage of the river—one, half a mile higher up, being still called Danes' Ford. On a bluff headland, rising perpendicularly 100 feet above the Severn, close by, the hardy Northerners, who thus left their name in connection with the Severn, established themselves in 896, when driven by Alfred from the Thames; and on the same projecting rock, defended ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... of lank trees reared its tousled snow-crowned head above the white heart of a wide valley. It was where the gorge of the Bell River opened out upon low banks. It was where the only trail of the region headed westwards. The bowels of the bluff were defended by a meagre undergrowth, which served little better purpose than to partially conceal them. About this bluff a ring of savages had formed. Low-type savages of smallish stature, and of little better intelligence ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... and a horror seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... church was damp and chill. It was rainin. The only persons there when I entered was a fine bluff old gentleman who was talking in a excited manner to a ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... light over the sea. The great plain of Biguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket of mist, as deadly they say, as any African miasma, above which the distant mountains raised summits already tinged with rose. Ahead and close at hand, the old town of Bastia jutted out into the sea, the bluff Genoese bastion concealing the harbour from view. De Vasselot had never been to Bastia, which Casabianda described as a great and bewildering city, where the unwary might soon lose himself. The man of incomprehensible speech was, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... Those on the other hand who followed showed themselves well disposed to the prisoner. The Deputy of the Public Prosecutor spoke strongly, but did not go beyond generalities. The advocate for the defence adopted a tone of bluff conviction of his client's innocence that earned the accused a sympathy he had failed to secure by his own efforts. The sitting was suspended and the jury assembled in the room set apart for deliberation. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... They saw his bluff. You cannot deceive Stock Exchange men, at least not the kind that Bob Brownley employed on panic days, but his coolness reassured them, and when they saw me it was odds-on that they guessed to a man why Bob had ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... Fitzgibbon, the most daring leader on the Canadian frontier those days, told me long afterward that he knew the building—a tall frame structure on the high shore of a tributary of the St. Lawrence. It was built on a side of the bluff and used originally as a depot for corn, oats, rye, and potatoes, that came down the river in bateaux. The slide was a slanting box through which the sacks of grain were conveyed to sloops and schooners below. It did not pay and was soon abandoned, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... a projecting bluff brought us within sight of what appeared to me a magnificent palace of alabaster. This palace I soon learned was a hotel, or place ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Apostle's statement is confirmed by his use of the word 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ideas, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... of Memphis, from its high bluff on the Mississippi, overlooks the surrounding country for a long distance. The muddy waters of the river, when at a low stage, lap the ever crumbling banks that yearly change, yielding to new deflections of the current. For hundreds of miles below there is a highly interesting ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... note in Sissy's voice that deceived her sister. In the perennial game of "bluff" these two played, each was alert to detect a weakness in the other; and Irene thought she had found one now. Ignoring her professor, she placed "In Sweet Dreams" on the rack before her, and gaily and loudly, and very ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... him, not without some slight imitation of his guest's bluff manliness. Admiring, as he did, above all things, that which savoured of heroism, he was strongly impressed by Venantius, whose like, among natives of Rome, he had not yet beheld, who shone before ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... is reported that on the north and north-north-west side there are dangerous shoals that lie farther off at sea; but I was not on that side. There are 2 hills on this island of a considerable height; one pretty bluff, the other peaked at top. The rest of the island is pretty level and of a good height from the sea. The shore clear round hath sandy bays between the rocky points I spoke of, and the whole island is a very dry sort ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... fight at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like Dickens, I longed to "take off my flesh, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... to give evidence regarding all that passed between you and the unfortunate girl supposed to be your niece during your midnight calls upon her," I interposed, speaking for the first time, "so bluff or pretence of any kind on your part is unavailing. Remain silent and hear what we ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... marrow, and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff but could n't stay there, the military tension was too much for them. In 1898 our people had read the word "war" in letters three inches high for three months in every newspaper. The pliant politician McKinley ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they had been so many sheep. I don't mean that they are cowards; I mean that they have got sense. They know they're not up against a bluff. It's the same way with the officers. I've seen secret service men, marshals, and railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses. I saw one of the bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along with the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... having now stood to the southward for a considerable distance without finding a harbour, tacked and stood to the northward, in hope of being more successful in that direction. The ship was off a high bluff headland with yellowish cliffs, which was accordingly called Cape Turnagain. Soon afterwards two chiefs and their three attendants paddled off, and willingly came on board. One of the chiefs had a very pleasing and honest expression of countenance. Though they would ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... the naval and military authorities in this country had expressed the opinion that successful attack upon the Dardanelles was virtually impracticable, and that H.M. Government had endorsed this view. Tell the Turk that, and our trump card was gone. We could then no longer bluff the Ottoman Government in the event of war with feints of operations against the Straits—the very course which I believe would have been adopted in 1914-1915, had the Admiralty War Staff and the General Staff considered the question together without Cabinet interference ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... the 13th, several of the boats being aground in mid-stream, they were attacked by Liddell, strongly posted on the high bluff known as Bouledeau Point. However, all passed by without loss or serious injury, and on the morning of the 14th, the fleet reached the bar at Campti, where A. J. Smith was met marching up the left bank of the river to its ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... Emperor were mad, he must be treated accordingly, and the old statesman condescended to "bluff." ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... glance at the river banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night as well as by day, avoid the" breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle crossing" at Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft in fogs, in storms, in the face of treacherous winds, on black nights, with thousands ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... group were sitting "Harry" Weil, who time and again has tied tin cans to Wall Street's tail; big, bluff, honest "Billy" Oliver, whose "I'll take ten thousand more" is as familiar to Stock Exchange members as the sound of the gong; and little "Jakey" Field, most audacious and resourceful of floor operators, graduated but a few years ago from the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a popular tradition. Castel-Cuille stands upon a bluff rock in the pretty valley of Saint-Amans, about a league from Agen. The castle was of considerable importance many centuries ago, while the English occupied Guienne; but it is now in ruins, though the village near it still exists. In a cottage, at the foot of the rock, lived ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the course he had adopted, the party and their adventurous leader on the 3rd of August, at 11 o'clock a.m., rounded a high bluff cape, which they called after the lady of Sir John Henry Pelly, Bart., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is situated in latitude 67 deg. 28' 00" north; longitude, by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and—I knew she liked me. She caught her breath before she answered. 'What right have you got to ask me questions?' said she, making a bluff ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... look arter dere chillen. Sometimes she'd try to git ole Marse to take dere part when de oberseer got too mean. But she might as well a sung hymns to a dead horse. All her putty talk war like porin water on a goose's back. He'd jis' bluff her off, an' tell her she didn't run dat plantation, and not for her to bring him any nigger news. I never thought ole Marster war good to her. I often ketched her crying, an' she'd say she had de headache, but I thought it war de heartache. 'Fore ole Marster died, she got so ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... was at first incredulous; he believed a submarine campaign of this nature to be unthinkable, and my statements to be merely bluff. The American Government therefore resolved to take no measures of precaution, but to dispatch a Note to Berlin on February 12th, summarizing the two conflicting points of view, which remained irreconcilable throughout ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... hold fish for him. He knew instantly what was in Kaye's mind; it had flitted from one boat to another that MacRae was making good the loss of salmon held for him, and Kaye was going to get in on this easy money if he could bluff it through. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was loaded with irons, and whom they were forcing over the side of the vessel into a boat. The two principal persons among our enemies appeared to be a man of a tall, thin figure, with a high-crowned hat and long neck band, and short-cropped head of hair, accompanied by a bluff, open-looking elderly man in a naval uniform. 'Yarely! yarely! pull away, my hearts,' said the latter, and the boat bearing the unlucky young man soon carried him on board the frigate. Perhaps you will blame me for mentioning this circumstance; but consider, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... empire soldiers are more necessary than peasants and artisans. Already in 1815 Mecklenburg could claim the glory of having produced the greatest Junker soldier of the age, bluff and rough Prince Bluecher, the victor of Waterloo. The achievements of the Grand Ducal regiments have fully proved that Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz have in the present war remained true to the glories of their military past and have remained worthy of their feudal present, ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... accompanied by several of the railroad's detectives, who met us with a couple of police dogs. Skulking in the shadow under the high embankment that separated the yards with their interminable lines of full and empty cars on one side and the San Juan Hill district of New York up on the bluff on the other side, we came upon a party of three men who were waiting to catch the midnight" side-door Pullman " - the fast ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... worry," he said, in a lower tone. "I know my way in and out of the ropes here better than you can teach me. A big hotel like this is the safest and the most dangerous place in the world—just how you choose to make it. You've got to bluff 'em all the time. That's why I brought the young lady—particular friend of mine—real nice ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a rifle. The sound startled me, and, dropping my fish, I ran up the steep bank of the river to the summit of the bluff on which the ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a headland that ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... no cause for fear. He could bluff his way out of this accusation, discredit the searchers, and make his position permanently secure. Possibly it was even better this way. He looked scornfully at the two men who ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... sports were setting, and said he was going in to town to see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?' but Dad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that if he hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left his room ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... came on the nine o'clock train, such a load of them—the big, bluff brother-in-law, Mabel, plump and laughing, as always, Minna, elfin and bright-eyed, and sleepy Baby Robin. Such hugging, such a hubbub of baby talk! How many things there seemed to be to do for those precious ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... batteries on the James River, to watch the progress made. Upon one occasion Vincent accompanied his mother and sisters, and a party of ladies and gentlemen from the neighboring plantations, to Drury's Bluff, where an entrenched position named Fort Darling had been erected, and preparations made to sink vessels across the river, and close it against the advance of the enemy's fleet should any misfortune happen to ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... evidently trying the good-natured game of bluff, and Manning noticed with some satisfaction that they were now approaching very near to the ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... becoming attached to such a man as Holcroft had been described to be. Her uncompromising principle had entered but slightly into his calculations, and so, under the spur of anger and selfishness, he had easily entered upon a game of bluff He knew well enough that he had no claim upon Alida, yet it was in harmony with his false heart to try to make her think so. He had no serious intention of harming Holcroft—he would be afraid to attempt this—but if he could so work on Alida's fears as to induce ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... meantime! In spite of all "steps" taken before and thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... earth than the captain of an ocean liner, but you can't get any seafaring man to believe it, and the captains themselves are rarely without a due sense of their own dignity. The man who tries to bluff the captain of a steamship like the Geranium has a hard row to hoe. Mr. Hodden descended to his state-room in a more subdued frame of mind than when he went on the upper deck. However, he still felt able ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... had raised his colour to "that exorbitancy of Vermeille" that it will hardly be reduced "under a fortnight's course of acids." It is the true spirit of comedy which introduces into this closely perfumed atmosphere the bluff country figure of Sir Positive Trap, with his exordiums on the rustic ladies, and on "the good old English art of clear-starching." Sir Positive hopes "to see the time when a man may carry his daughter to market with the same lawful authority as any other of his cattle"; and ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... beauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan's glad smile, that it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at last. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and made a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and one could see that those two took to each other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is Hodges; he's a crook. 'If we publish that story,' he said,'the directors of the bank will never meet, and we'll bear the onus of having wrecked the Gotham Trust Company.' But that's all a bluff, and he knew it; we could prove that that conference took place, if it ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... shdory, Crate voonders ish peen told Of lapors fool of glory, Of heroes bluff und bold; Of high oldt times a-kitin, Of howlin und of tears, Of kissin and of vightin, All dis we ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... himself, as he started down the street. "Of course, I know I lost that chisel last night, and Driggs may have found it in his boatyard. But he can't prove that the chisel belongs to me, or to our house. There are lots more chisels just like that one. If Driggs tries to bluff me he'll find that I'm ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... I," agreed Marston. "I have thought all his loud talk has been bluff to beat up a bigger price. But, after what he did to-day! Oh no! He is out to fight and he grabbed his chance to show us! I do not believe a lot of this regular fight talk. But when a man comes up and smashes me between the eyes I begin to suspect ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... ships of commerce, indeed, are often days in traversing the distance between one port and another, for they wait for the wind to blow abaft, and being heavy, deeply laden, built broad and flat-bottomed for shallows, and bluff at the bows, they drift like logs of timber. In canoes the hunters, indeed, sometimes pass swiftly from one place to another, venturing farther out to sea than the ships. They could pass yet more quickly ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... all right," said Miller, "but it was a woman's idea of a bluff, and it didn't go. She told us that before we urged her brother on to fight, we should have found out that he has spent the last five years in Paris, and that he's the gilt-edged pistol-shot of the salle d'armes in the Rue Scribe, that he can hit a scarf-pin at twenty paces. Of course that ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... called the 'dry shakes of the sand hills', a sort of brilliant, tremolo movement, brilliantly executed upon 'that pan-pipe, man', by an invisible but very powerful performer." From here, where they were engaged in building Fort Fisher, they were called to Drewry's Bluff; and from there to the Chickahominy, participating in the seven days' fighting around Richmond. Just before the battle of Malvern Hill they marched all night through drenching rain, over torn and swampy roads. These were the only important battles in which Lanier took part. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... cruel wrong, Morris, a cruel wrong. You read my sign on the outer wall? Well, that's a bluff. There's nothing in real estate, per se, as old Doc Bridges used to say at college. And the loan business has all gone to the bad,—people are too rich; farmers are rolling in real money and have it to lend. There was nothing for little Willie in petty brokerages. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... three-fourths of a point more to the westward; at ten, we saw more land open to the southward, and at noon, the southermost land that was in sight bore S. 39 deg. W. distant eight or ten leagues, and a high bluff head, with yellowish cliffs, bore W. distant about two miles: The depth ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... "reasonable" was only in comparison with the stormy interview of the day before, when the Superintendent attacked me most fiercely. When I began the second interview by saying I wished to resign, he changed front altogether. It had been purely a game of bluff ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... got to Rilby Head, where they found plenty to amuse them. It was a splendid headland, rising bluff four hundred feet out of the sea, and presenting magnificent reaches of rock scenery on all sides. The boys lay on the turf at the summit, and flung innocuous stones at the sea-gulls as they sailed far below them over the water, and every now and then pounced at some stray ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the turn of the tide and was freshening, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels, abrigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles' distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... informed Dingaan bluntly that my object in visiting him was to demand the surrender of the white 'ntombozaan whom he held in captivity, I saw at once that, for some reason which I could not then guess, he was very greatly perturbed. But, like the savage he was, he also attempted to "bluff", so that the matter soon resolved itself into a "bluffing match" between us, in which, although I did not know it, I held the advantage. First the king indignantly denied all knowledge of the girl for whom I was then seeking; ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... to bluff me," said Bagley. "I've been on to your game for a good while. You can fool some of the people, but you can't fool me. I'm too ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... person enshrined in our hearts as Thomas Atkins. Before he had learned from reading stories about himself that he, as an individual, also possessed the above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of the fact. My early recollections of the British soldier are of a bluff, rather surly person, never the least jocose or light-hearted except perhaps when ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... who crib their exams off their cuffs. He was always at the head of any social plans in the school, and at the dances he rushed about wearing in his coat lapel a ribbon marked Floor Committee. The teachers all knew he was a bluff, but his engaging manner carried him through. When he went away to the state university he made Fanny solemnly promise to write; to come down to Madison for the football games; to be sure to remember ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... careful, thoughtful man in command—it wanted dash and bluff. It could have been done in those early days. The landing WAS a success—a brilliant, blinding success—but it stuck at the very moment when it should have rushed forward. It was no one's fault if you understand. It was sheer luck. It just didn't "come ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... Walters watched grimly as the Polaris landed on the Academy spaceport. They had been in contact with Connel during his trip back to Earth and had already told the bluff major of still another incident that had taken place at the Academy while ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... the look-out, I could not have hit it," I said. "But I say, Pomp," I continued, looking round as we came upon a high sandy bluff through which the river had cut its way, and whose dry, sun-bathed sides offered a pleasant ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... famous Vimy Ridge, blue in the middle distance, of which half is ours and half German. We are very near the line. Notre Dame de Lorette is not very far away, though too far for us to reach the actual spot, the famous bluff, round which the battle raged in 1915. And now the guns begin!—the first we have heard since we arrived. From our left—as it seemed—some distance away, came the short sharp reports of the trench mortars, but presently, as we walked on, guns just behind us and below us, began ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... into it. From the Friars the land trenches away about N. by E. four leagues: We had smooth water, and kept in shore, having regular soundings from twenty to fifteen fathoms water. At half-past six we hauled round a high bluff point, the rocks whereof were like so many fluted pillars, and had ten fathoms water, fine sand, within half a mile of the shore. At seven, being abreast of a fine bay, and having little wind, we came-to, with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... a half-circle round the bank hidden a few feet below the muddy water. Then he steamed slowly seawards, keeping the windmill full astern and the beacon on his port quarter. When the beacon was bearing southeast he rang the engine-room bell. The steamer, hardly moving before, stopped dead, its bluff nose turned to the wind and the rustling waves. Then Captain Petersen held up his hand to the first mate, who was on the high forecastle, and the anchor splashed over. The Olaf was anchored at the head of a submarine bay. She had shoal water all round her, and no vessel could get at her ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... separated late in the afternoon, and I was hunting with an old Chinese when we discovered three pigs—a huge boar, a sow, and a shote—crossing an open hill. Crawling on my face, I reached a rock not seventy yards from the animals. At the first shot the boar pitched over the bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing wildly. My second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had a mad chase through a patch of scrub, ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... to witnesses, Mahony dug his pencil into the paper till the point snapped. So this was their little game! And should the bluff not work ...? He sat rigid, staring at the chipped fragment of lead, and did not look up throughout the ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... sudden hush, followed by hand clapping, during which Jim slipped down. Sara gave him a bear hug. "Oh, Still Jim, you're the light of my weary eyes! Did he call our bluff, Pen, huh?" ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... fictitious size, and clothed him with imaginary qualities. Col's idea of him was equally extravagant, though very different: he told us, he was quite a Don Quixote; and said, he would give a great deal to see him and Dr Johnson together. The truth is, that Lochbuy proved to be only a bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord. Lady Lochbuy was sister to Sir Allan M'Lean, but much older. He said to me, 'They are quite Antediluvians.' Being told that Dr Johnson did not hear well, Lochbuy bawled out ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... directed by the General Com'dg to say that he deems it advisable that you should move your Hd. Qrs. higher up the river, say in the vicinity of Webber's Falls or Pheasant Bluff. He is desirous that you should be somewhere near the Council when that body meets, so that any attempt of the enemy to interfere with their deliberations may be thwarted by you."—DUVAL to Cooper, April 22, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... which the reports of the guns seemed to proceed. Nothing could we see, however, but the frowning rocks and cliffs, and the waves beating restlessly at their base. Cape Pug-Nose was reached, and we began to round the bluff old point. In a moment all our doubts were dispelled, and joy and gratitude to the Great Giver of all good filled our hearts. There, in the little sheltered cove beyond the cape, her sails furled, her anchor ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... there's no time for argument. But when you said political exigency you said a whole lot—and we'll let this particular skunk cabbage go under that name. Don't try that law-and-order and state-authority bluff with me in such a case as this is. You're right in with the bunch and you know just as well as I do what the game is this time. Probably those folks outside there don't know what they want, but they do know that something is wrong! Something is almighty wrong ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... ball, covered by his hands, close to his mouth. Evidently the pitcher intended to use the spit ball. Nevertheless, something warned Bart that Dale had turned the ball over and grasped the dry side. His pretense of trying a spit ball was all a bluff. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... circumstances of their history, the resemblance ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact. Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King Harry's temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse, and irascible; while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the dignity ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... could have been more happily chosen for this beautiful congress-hall of flowers. It occupies a bluff that overlooks the Schuylkill a hundred feet below to the eastward, and is bounded by the deep channels of a pair of brooks equidistant on the north and south sides. Up the banks of these clamber the sturdy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... no answer, but something to bluff me off. I saw he was unwilling to speak out, and that it was a mere effort to button up and evade the subject. So to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... year, and some guid mair, Syn Dutch Mynheer made courtship till her, A merchant bluff and fu' o' care, Wi' chuffy cheeks, and bags o' siller; So Dutch Mynheer was wooing at her, Courting her, but cudna get her; Bonny Lizzy Liberty has ow'r mony ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a darling. They do themselves awfully well here. I'm afraid your bluff, plain, democratic Westerners are a fraud. I hear a lot more about 'society' here than I ever did in the East. The sets seem frightfully complicated." She was drifting into the drawing-room, to a tapestry stool, and ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... fierce because she loved him most and she had nothing, nothing to give him. For he had to go back, oh, he had to go back to-morrow, and he hated it so—they all hated it—the best of them! How clearly she saw through the superb, pitiful bluff, that it was all sport, "wonderful"! Wonderful? She knew, but she would never dare let Leonard see ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... pretty, as Sam Weller said. Oh, here's Tommy May—Here, Tom, what do you think of the weather?" said the lad, addressing a bluff-looking seaman. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... and the whole detail at Chattanooga with half a hog, a fifty pound sack of flour, a jug of Meneesee commissary whisky, and a camp-kettle full of brown sugar. I'm beat. Billy Martin, hand over the stakes. Bully for Bragg; he's hell on a retreat." Tennessee was trying bluff. He couldn't run worth a cent; but there was no braver or truer man ever drew a ramrod or tore ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... standing, as I have said, on its western bank—on the same side with Point Coupee. In front was a lawn, some two hundred yards in length, that stretched toward the river, and ended on the low bluff forming its bank. This lawn was enclosed by high rail-fences, and variegated with clumps of shrubbery and ornamental trees. Most of them were indigenous to the country; but there were exotics as well. Among the trees you could ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... At any rate, I feel inclined to try it. I am glad the colonel is going to travel with us, as I shall be able to question him about the details of his cure. He seems a bluff, genial fellow, and though I don't expect to enjoy his companionship much, I hope to derive some ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... when to redouble is so intricate that it is hard to consider, except when the specific case arises. Some players frequently redouble, as a kind of bluff, when convinced their declaration will fail, the intent being to frighten either the doubler or his partner into another declaration. Against a very timid player, this is sometimes successful, but unless it catch its victim, it is ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... up the St. John's, or River of May, there stands, on the southern bank, a hill some forty feet high, boldly thrusting itself into the broad and lazy waters. It is now called St. John's Bluff. Thither the Frenchmen repaired, pushed through the dense semi-tropical forest, and climbed the steep acclivity. Thence they surveyed their Canaan. Beneath them moved the unruffled river, gliding around the reed-grown shores of marshy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Tira," said Raven again. "I've been in more dangerous places than this, and run bigger risks than Tenney's old musket. That's all talk, what he says to you, all bluff. I begin to think he isn't equal to anything but scaring a woman to death. But"—now he saw his argument—"I will go. Nan and I will go to-night, but only if you go with us. Now is your chance, Tira. Run back to the house and get the boy. Bring him here, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... waistcoat, there was a thrill in the House of Commons, and his followers bellowed their exultation and delight. In a more recent day, Lord Althorpe was able to bear down the hostility of some of the most powerful orators of his time by a bluff manliness which no rhetoric could withstand. And so also with Jimmy—his sheer audacity carries him along the slow, dull, inept, muddy tide of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... affair about the Trenholmes. I like Trenholme, and, of course, he has shown himself able to rise. The younger fellow is plain and bluff, like enough ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... when a cab came round a corner. But I don't regret it, you know. During the last fortnight I have had leisure to go into this Bosnian Succession business, and I see now that Von Kladow has been playing one big game of bluff. Very well; it has got to stop. I am going to prick the bubble before ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... he would avoid banality. With a wise instinct he chose the old free-and-easy tetrameter, which Goethe had used with excellent effect in some of his early plays. In German this meter lends itself beautifully to the bluff, off-hand discourse of soldiers. It gives an illusion of realism while preserving ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... women were soft and pretty, but they could not lift a snowshoe far in a day's journey. Everybody talked too much. That was why they lied and were unable to work greatly with their hands. Finally, there was a new human force called "bluff." A man who made a bluff must be dead sure of it, or else be prepared to back it up. Bluff was a very good thing—when ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... looked upon in high quarters as a big bluff that should have been "called" by Meade while the Army of Northern Virginia was north of the Rappahannock. Meade, however, acted persistently and conscientiously on his own judgment, formed in the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the island dead astern of her, a solitary figure stood on the east bluff of the island, and was the last object seen from the boat as she left those ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... seemed to lock their arms together, and confine this mighty river in their embraces. There was a feeling of quiet luxury in gazing at the broad, green bosoms here and there scooped out among the precipices; or at woodlands high in air, nodding over the edge of some beetling bluff, and their foliage all transparent in ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... respectfully acknowledged the salutation, and at once opened her business to the bluff ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... swollen by melting mountain snow, was a hundred feet from the stockade gate, and on its bank stood the log cavalry stables. Below, a scant half mile away, were the only trees visible, a scraggly grove of cottonwoods, while down the face of the bluff and across the flat ran the slender ribbon of trail. Monotonous, unchanging, it was a desolate picture to watch day after day in ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the Pay; to be called Captain, noble Captain, to show, to cock and look big, and bluff as I do: to be bow'd to thus as we pass, to domineer and beat our Soldiers: Fight, quoth ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... sure," said "Stump." "There's many a slip between the muzzle and the target. Maybe we won't do much after all. Just to make it interesting I'll bet you a dinner at Del's that we will only chuck a bluff. What ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... moment's notice; the oars were got out, prepared for any emergency. The boats glided on. Instead of the tumbling, hissing waters through which they had lately passed, all was calm and smooth. On the right was a high bluff, with a reef running out from it. On the left the land was more level, but everywhere covered with low, stunted trees; while the shores on either hand were fringed with black, rugged rocks, and ahead rose ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... the sun was red above the bluff where the curving line of cliffs end at the river's edge, she brought ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... "called the bluff." Perhaps the lesson might have a salutary effect. And so, as his good humor came back to ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... woman! And never so ill as when they all thought I was entirely cured! Besides—" Rachael looked down at her tanned arm and slender brown fingers marking grooves in the sand. "Besides, it's partly—bluff, Alice," she confessed. "I'm fighting myself these days. I don't want to think that we—Greg and I—can't go back, can't be ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known as Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung to the water so that we could see nothing, but we ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... changed considerably, and instead of a continual alternation of cliff and river bed, the valley became more open and level; we were, in fact, nearing the upper end of the valley. Beyond Cheshi the road leads up a bluff and down the other side on to the bed of the Pandur Lake. This lake had, at the beginning of 1894, been a sheet of water some four and a half miles long, but, the dam at its end having given way in July, it had drained off rapidly; and when I had crossed it in November of the same year, the mud ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... little ones play blind-man's-bluff, or hunt-the-slipper. Sometimes Jack Frost steals down from the North, and pinches them. But he does not stay long. He ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown
... encumbered with families; not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and pushing disposition. Now those around me were for the most part quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly youths who had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... low cliffs of ash and volcanic boulder, sloping westward to the sea, which is eating them fast away, the steamer runs in through a deep crack, a pistol-shot in width. On the east side a strange section of gray lava and ash is gnawn into caves. On the right, a bluff rock of black lava dips sheer into water several fathoms deep; and you anchor at once inside an irregular group of craters, having passed through a gap in one of their sides, which has probably been torn out by a lava flow. Whether the land, at the time of the flow, was ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... money in carousing about Europe; Madame Albert, the lady doctor from Lyons whose unique combination of magic and massage (a family secret) had brought the expiring Prince of Philippopolis to life again; an Italian senator with his two pretty daughters; a bluff hilarious Scotchman, Mr. Jameson, who, as a matter of fact, had done seven years for forgery but did not like to have it brought up against him; some sisters of charity; a grizzled sea-captain who was making ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... noise like breaking down again. Don't, Peter. I've gone on a bluff all my life. I'm a rotten sentimentalist at heart— soft as smashed grapes. It's my devil. If you break down, ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... great body of their infantry across the river." His success, however, was exceedingly short-lived. Colonel John F. Miller, commanding the right brigade of Negley's division, had, in the absence of Negley in the rear, ordered the troops of his division to lie down under cover of the bluff of the river bank, and hold their fire until our troops from the other side crossed over and moved to the rear. As soon as the last of Beatty's men had passed through Miller's lines, he commanded the ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?" asked Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... composed of a rocky basis, covered by a thin layer of sandy soil. On the summit of the bluff east end of the island was observed one of those immense nests that were seen at King George the Third's Sound, the base of which measured seven feet in diameter. Whilst examining the nest, some natives were descried on an adjoining island, and as our principal object was to communicate ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... in a business way, Tom, I'd warn you to look out for them, as they're sharp dealers. They put one over on the government all right, and there may be some unpleasant publicity to it later. But they're putting up a big bluff, and pretending they can turn out a lot of flying machines for use in Europe. Why don't you get busy on that end of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... "Pawnee," the heaviest of the fleet, being a sloop of less than thirteen hundred tons, with a battery of fifteen guns, none of long range. Clearly such an armada as this could be of but little avail against the earthworks which the Virginians were busily erecting on every commanding bluff. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... sealskin canoe, and early on the morning of October 4th I bade the Major and Dodd good-bye at the beach, and they pushed off. We started up our train of horses as the boats disappeared around a projecting bluff, and cantered away briskly across the valley toward a gap in the mountains, through which we entered the "wilderness." The road for the first ten or fifteen versts was very good; but I was surprised to find that, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... bluff was of no avail as she was soon aware when once more the man salaamed with a world ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... biting breeze swept up from the Hudson River below. It was chilling in the extreme, here at the top of the bluff, but Dick, in his misery, had been ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... from a small bluff near Scott's Dam on the Rappahannock, and covering the roads on the river, along a crest between Mine and Mineral Spring Runs towards and within a short mile ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... countenance, his hair was long and unkempt, while his clothes were sadly in need of repair, or more truthfully new ones to take their place. But there was an honest frankness in his manner, and Captain Hillgrove entered into the spirit of the venture with a hearty good-will. The bluff old sea dog, too, true to his nature, was anxious to get out to sea again as soon ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... counsel on the matter with Captain King, a bluff, tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to him ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... continues afflicting the world. And all these errors were representing great fortunes, each saving panacea bringing into existence an industrial corporation selling its products at high prices—as though suffering were a privilege of the rich. How different from the bluff Pasteur and other clever men of the inferior races who have given their discoveries to the world without stooping ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... A bluff projection, bearing South 65 degrees East seven miles, bounded our view to the southward, and a range of sugarloaf hills, the highest being 350 feet, rose about eight miles ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes |
